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My first time in San Francisco was a tale from Edgar Allan Poe. I spent the entire night trying to entice the household cats to sit on me (Poe was so poor he tried to keep his ill wife warm using that method). It was only later I discovered Mark Twain’s wry observation that the coldest winter he’d ever known was a summer in San Francisco. Testify! This time I was more prepared. The trusty puffer jacket conveniently manifested in the middle aisle of Aldi just before my departure for the States. It was a great comfort as I waited in the icy wind blowing up from Union Square for the tour bus that never arrived . No Muir Woods for me, then.
All was not lost
Fortunately, Rashida had called me out on my punk posing. Who was I kidding? I’ve always been more hippie than punk. Of course , I went to City Lights Bookstore and gloried in the cultural history I’ve loved since my undergraduate days. Oh, the poet’s room. Oh the joy of small scale, personal, funky book shops. Shoutout to Rabble Books, Crow Books, New Editions that supply the same kind of soul nourishment to writers ✍️ and readers in my hometown.
A couple of years back I amused myself by entitling a poem “Hiss” in a cryptic micro-homage to Ginsberg’s “Howl”. It was published in Verseville.www.verseville.org/liana-joy-christensen.html
Hiss
the aeolian harp unplucked, strings grow slack, wood warps those of us left
to occupy the faded glory of this low rent apartment
feeling small in such a high ceilinged space we shiver suspicion
of the wind that once howled through aureate orations
in this reverse alchemy gold dissolves, tin takes its place in our ears
our gaze turns away and unbidden our hands sign avert
to baroque and powerful ghosts whose mouths spill pearls and serpents
courting disaster we trust instead the cheap portent of fox tells all
so we need not see the rust smeared basins that once flowed with oracles
we stiffen our resolve, brush off the dust that sifts down from crumbling plaster
safer by far to placate the small gods of shabby chicanery
drown our dreams in entertainment death streaming graffiti clichés
poetry has left the building
It left the building with me |  |  |
On the way back to my eyrie, I spoke briefly with Terry Williams who was standing in the boarded-up doorway of his burned out home. I said I was so sorry and asked if it was okay to take the following pictures. He gave his permission and went back to speaking with some neighbours.
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In this city of poets, Terry Williams stood his ground with clear dignity, calling to mind Leonard Cohen’s lines
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